Father was under no illusions that he'd be victorious.

Just because his hope had sustained him for all of those years, just because his ambition, his hunger for power had kept him going for centuries, nothing would deprive him of the logic upon which he had structured his plans in the first place.

He knew he was failing.

He didn't need to feel the power, boundless, limitless- so, so incredible- writhe and sear at his very being to know that his control over it was slipping.

Everything was slipping away. Slipping through his grasp at the very last moment, trickling away into nothing in the seconds that should have heralded in an enternity. He was a simple creature, born from alchemy, born from blood, and he wanted to be more.

And he was more, now. He was so powerful, so bright, everything he'd always wanted, only for it to burn.

Burn, and melt into a misshappen mess of agony that was going to let him fall.

He felt the truth with each frantic heartbeat, in each blow from the mere human who stood against him. All the others were collapsed, staring with eyes bright with greif, pain and hope, all pathetic, all things he'd left behind.

And alone, the Fullmetal Alchemist stood against him. One arm laced with scars with stories of pain and perseverence, one pale and weak, speaking of victory and sacrifice. And alone, the Fullmetal Alchemist was winning, the air was ringing with the cries of his allies. And alone, the Fullmetal Alchemist cried for his brother and the fallen and the future.

It was like Father had already lost.

But losing was a process and the battle was still being fought. Oh, he already knew full well that the odds of this particular battle would never shift in hs favour again. But everything ammounted to a war, not a single battle.

This particular war had been stretched out over centuries, every moment, every battle, every action carved into history. He'd always return and he'd always win, in the end, in the long run.

That was why his symbol was the ouroboros. Eternity and rebirth, overcoming the circle of creation and destruction. A dragon eating its own tail, starting at the beginning when it reached the ending.

And that was the solution. Restart the cycle, find a better ending. Let the dragon eat it's tail, let it be born again.

Because time was merely a plaything with the kind of power, bubbling and raging beneath his skin. Even with his slipping grasp, it was enough, it was more than enough.

He was a God, and Gods could do the impossible.

It was as simple as that. With a smirk and one last tug at the boiling, agonising, raw power, everything ended.

The dragon ate its tail.

And everything started again.

Standing in the shadow of the Gate, stranded in infinity, It howls in rage.

The cycle of everything was disrupted. It was being dragged backwards, it was being distorted. It was unatural and ugly and wrong.

For the first time, the Truth's grin slipped, and It's face twisted into a snarl.

Behind It, the Gate shuddered, shadowy hands reached through the tiniest of gaps, clawing at nothing. They had nothing to reach for, but everything to long for.

The doors opened and closed, and each slam echoed across the infinite emptiness.

Ed knew something was wrong before he even opened his eyes. His leg throbbed with phantom pain, a dull agony. Which was wrong. Because his leg was metal and cold and unfeeling.

His leg didn't feel things. His leg didn't hurt. His leg was built from metal and pain and consequences.

His metal leg was hurting, but his arms felt fine, even though one of them was littered with shards of metal and the other was pale and shriveled. This wasn't right. But nothing would be right again, would it?

Because Al was gone, gone to the gate, the armour had no light in its eyes and it had all ended with a simple clap. Al was gone and Ed still hadn't figured out how to bring him back. He had been close to an answer, so tantilisingly close, but not enough. Never enough.

He hadn't had the time, and it killed him to know that somewhere, Al would be waiting. Waiting alone with the Truth and the Gates and the weight of all their mistakes.

It was the thought of Al, with his empty, hulking armour, Al with his mane of matted hair, pale-whole - body and patient golden eyes, that forced Ed to open his eyes.

The sight that greeted him was something out of a nightmare. His childhood home loomed all around him. The walls had once seemed cozy and reassuring and had built the foundation of the belief he was safe (it'd burned to ash long ago. Safety and comfort went out the window the second he decided to place his hands on that circle and reached for more than he could fully grasp) but now they trapped him.

Ed knew this had to be a nightmare. It was simple. He'd left. It had burned. He'd travelled and his location had changed so often that home had become a person- a suit of armour, to be exact- then a group of people, Mustang, the military, the chimeras, Greed. But Al always had been and always would be the defining factor of safety and okay.

So Ed ran. He stumbled- his limbs were too short and too whole to be real- through the hallways, without even waiting for the thing to come and chase him, with staggering steps and ghastly wails and bright, accusing eyes. It didn't appear, but he still ran.

Everything was wrong. He wasn't safe and this wasn't real.

He stumbled into the basement, following the path laid out by his nightmares, half expecting the thing to be waiting, or maybe for a circle to errupt into a brilliant arc of light. Maybe even Nina would be there, waiting to play.

Instead, it was cool and silent, the air was musty like nobody had been down here for a long time. Shapes loomed in the corners, lining the walls like silent guardians. He staggered over to one of the towering figures, and there it was.

Al's armour stared straight past him, covered in a thin layer of dust, like it'd never moved at all. There was no light in its eyes. Because Al was gone, dead and silent and still waiting. And there never would be a light there again, because Ed had failed, his promise laid shattered around him and he knew that he wouldn't be able to walk forwards anymore.

He curled up at the armour's feet like the cold didn't remind him of the mine, with the silence and the snow and the memory of complete agony, and fell asleep hoping to dream that Al was waiting and there was somehow a chance of a happy ending after all.

Ed blinked awake hours later to someone shaking his too-small shoulder. He turned to see Hohenheim's concerned face towering over him. He barely managed to flinch away, and even his cry of 'bastard' was half-hearted.

Hohenheim's concern morphed into relief, and then into a frown. "Language." He scolded gently.

Ed scowled, preparing to unleash every single one of the words Mustang and his men had taught him.

Hohenheim must have recognised whatever expression was on Ed's face, because he sighed. "Edward, listen to me." He said seriously, causing Ed to focus. That tone had meant that the Promised Day was approaching, that there wasn't any time for messing around, because there was a battle on the horizon, and the outcome would change everything.

"What's the last thing you remember? Before waking up?" Hohenheim asked urgently.

Ed paused, and focused.

Fighting Father and winning. A smirk. A surge of raw, incredible power. White. A frown.

A door slamming. Then waking up, and fear. But not falling asleep. He'd never lost consciousness.

Which meant... Which meant that this may not be an awfully ill-timed and cruel dream, and this could be real.

His leg gave a throb of pain in agreement. But his leg couldn't hurt because it was metal, and his hands... His hands were nearly identiacal- scarless and far, far too small.

"What did he do?" Ed asked hoarsely, staring up at Hohenheim's unreadable, ageless face.

"I think he ran away. He knew he was losing, so he used his power to go back to the past." Hohenheim announced gravely.

"But that's-" Ed's mind was still reeling.

"Nothing is impossible." Hohenheim sighed, and for a moment, Ed thought of Greed: a sharp grin and sharper words.

"Not with the power of God." Ed agreed grimly. Everything was making an awful lot of sense, and he didn't like it.

"How did we end up in the past then?" There was one loophole, one flaw and one chance for this not to be real.

Something must have shown on his face, because Hohenheim just looked unbearably sad. "I think it has something to do with the fact that we were his sacrifices. It was an odd ritual at best, and old, dangerous alchemy."

Ed remembered. He remembered it hurting, he remembered how wrong it felt. But then he remembered that there were five sacrifices. "Then Al?" He asked hopefully.

Some time ago, he would have hated looking to Hohenheim for answers. Because Hohenheim had left, and then everything fell apart. It had been easy to blame Hohenheim, because he left and so he didn't care. But then he came back. He came back and he fought for them and then he saved them.

So yeah, Hohenheim couldn't be all bad. He'd worked to save them all from Father. He'd worked so he could return to his family, and he'd come back. He'd come back and he'd still tried to be a father to them. (Ed had to admire that stubborness, however grudgingly.)

In the interest of the saving the world, Ed had been forced to listen to Hohenheim. And despite having little to no reason to tell them anything, aside from being family (ties that Ed had tried his hardest to sever), he'd never lied to them or led them wrong.

Because of that, when Hohenheim slowly shook his head, the anger Ed had expected didn't come. Instead, there was a heavy onslaught of greif and weary acceptance. He'd seen the light fade from the armour's eye sockets, he'd heard Al's final whisper fade into silence.

Once Icarus crashed, he didn't fly again.

Instead, the surge of hope that had accompanied the idea of another chance- more time- fizzled out slowly, because in the end, he hadn't saved his brother or kept his promise.

Seeing Alphonse alive and human and innocent was a slap to the face. They must have been thrown back by years and years, because Al was barely able to walk, or even talk.

For a moment, Ed felt a staggering sense of loss all over again. His brother, who'd walked beside him in a looming suit of armour, his Alphonse, who'd adopted stray cats and tried to sacrifice himself to save him, was gone.

But instead, this Al had never known pain. He'd never been pulled apart by the frenzied- desperate- hands of the gate. He'd never stared in a mirror and wondered if his entire life was a lie. He'd never had to even think about dying to save his brother, with nothing but blind trust and his own face waiting for him in an empty, silent place to comfort him.

This Al, Ed knew he'd protect. His brother would remain whole and alive and hopeful for his entire life, and he'd live long past the Promised Day.

The light would never fade from his eyes.

Seeing his mother again was just as painful. Because she'd been wrenched away too soon, and her image had been distorted and tainted and torn by what he'd done. For the first few days, he expected Al to disappear and his mother's face to twist into a withered, ghastly nightmare.

He imagined that it'd be worse for Hohenheim. Despite wanting to be furious, he could only imagine the torture that his father was facing: knowing that he'd been this happy before, and that he'd left it all behind. Knowing that the love of his life had wasted away waiting for him, until all that was left was a burnt skeleton of a house and happy memories, and the echo of her last words, that he'd never hear in her voice, because he had been cursed with forever and instead had run out of time when it'd mattered the most.

But they were lucky. Mostly because Hohenheim often holed himself in his study for days at a time, so he had time to come to terms with things in private. Ed wasn't so lucky, but he was young enough that randomly being quiet and clingy was normal enough for him.

Both Ed and Hohenheim knew there was a future looming over them. Both of them knew how the story would - had ended. But both of them knew the pain of losing family, and if by some miraculous mistake, they had been granted a second chance, then they weren't going to let it slip by.

So if Trisha noticed that Hohenheim left his study more and more every day, would sit with his sons and make sure he spent time with her, and if she noticed that her eldest son would cling to her, and check that his younger brother was okay at every single opportunity, she didn't say anything.